Introduction; Part I. Framing the Question, Framing the World: 1. What is an apology? Christian apologies and the so-called second sophistic; 2. What is the space of the Roman Empire? Mapping, bodies, and knowledge in the Roman World; Part II. Into the Cities: 3. What informs the geographical imagination? The acts of the Apostles and Greek cities under Rome; 4. What is justice? What is piety? What is paideia? Justin, the forum of Trajan in Rome, and a crisis of mimēsis; Part III. Human Bodies and the Image(s) of God(s): 5. How do you know God? Athenagoras on names and images; 6. What do we learn when we look? (Part I) Images, desire, and Tatian's To the Greeks; 7. What do we learn when we look? (Part II) Aphrodite and Clement of Alexandria; Epilogue.
Laura Nasrallah argues that early Christian literature is best understood when read alongside the archaeological remains of Roman antiquity.
Laura Salah Nasrallah is Associate Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School. She is the author of An Ecstasy of Folly: Prophecy and Authority in Early Christianity and co-editor of Prejudice and Christian Beginnings: Investigating Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in Early Christian Studies and From Roman to Early Christian Thessalonikē: Studies in Religion and Archaeology.
Reviews of the hardback: '… provocative, convincing … reads
second-century Christian literature, texts of the Second Sophistic,
and the remains of material culture as a broad corpus concerned
with the production and contestation of ethnicity, geography, and
empire in the high Roman Empire … skilfully couples images, maps,
and archaeological reconstructions with lucid written discussions
of art and archaeology. Nasrallah's approach challenges received
historical narratives that consider Christian literature sui
generis … [she] demonstrates that early Christian apologetics
emerged from the same political and social milieu as other
second-century Greek literature … [she] re-reads 'canonical'
second-century texts in terms of spatial and geographic agonism.
Although focused in particular on Christian apologetics, Nasrallah
shows classicists and ancient historians that any cultural history
of second-century culture that ignores early Christian texts is
incomplete. A must read for scholars and students of early
Christianity, classics, and ancient history … Essential.' J.
Schott, Choice
'… we should end our review of Nasrallah's work with a real sense
of gratitude for a work of intriguingly suggestive and thoughtful
scholarship.' Journal of Ecclesiastical History
'… the book is ambitious in its methodology and reach, but
Nasrallah has offered a cogent and well-organised thesis that is
well worth reading. This art historian learned some new ways of
viewing well-known works of art, which made this a rewarding read.'
Journal of Church History
'This excellent book is a delight to read, and should garner the
avid attention of anyone interested in early Christianity and its
engagement with Roman culture, or in the spatial and material
readings of ancient texts more generally. It is hard to do justice
to the outstanding quality of the work … or the insights that dot
every page. The mastery of the secondary literature both for the
ancient texts and for the archaeological examples is enviable in
its breadth and depth, as well as its theoretical sophistication.
Also deserving of note (and emulation!) is Nasrallah's generous and
engaged treatment of her colleagues' work, and her lively, fluid
style … an unqualified success at its goal, to 'stimulate the
reader's imagination to question the prescriptive rhetoric of elite
sources, to think spatially, and to look to archaeological
materials as well as literary'.' Journal of the American Academy of
Religion
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